It is possible to start a visualisation container (e.g. Ovito) on the HPC front-ends. To do this, you must first connect to the front-ends via X11 forwarding using the command :

ssh -X dahu.cement # to connect to the Dahu cluster, for example

Next, you need to mount the $HOME folder to get access to the .Xauthority file (which stores the session authentication cookies). This will allow you to set the $DISPLAY environment variable without getting an error when using the container.

You can then get graphical feedback for the Ovito Apptainer image using the command :

apptainer run --contain --bind $HOME --cleanenv --env DISPLAY=$DISPLAY ovito.sif

Caution

It is not advisable to run heavy processes on the front-ends of clusters. On some clusters there are services that kill all processes that run for more than X minutes. This is particularly the case for the dahu and bigfoot front-ends.